Supreme Court

06/05/2010

Smooth operator, Barry Obama, likes his lady appointees to fit a certain mold. Appearance is taken into account when making an important selection and this man is a uniter. Well he claimed to be a uniter, at least... and I'll give him credit for attempting to unite the genders in at least a couple of his nominations. Perhaps the Napolitano and Kagan appointments were intended to placate the transgendered lobby, as either could easily pass for a gender confused victim of our cruel society.

Will Lil Sis look like Big Sis in three years (given that they are approximately separated by 2 1/2 years)? Both were born in New York, New York so their may have been been a steroid problem with New York City drinking water in the mid to late fifties. If there is another live-action Flintstones movie, the casting director should look to one of these two Obama appointees when finding the perfect Fred.

04/23/2010

The "Right Turn - Left Turn" series at Riverbender.com has been restarted and this week's topic is the "Fairness Doctrine".

A snip of my piece (Right Turn):

I so enjoy the naming conventions employed by the left as they attempt to exert their will on the electorate. Blatant seizures of power or trampling of liberties are much more palatable if given innocuous or even positive names. One example of this practice (oxymoron naming) is the “Fairness Doctrine”. For proponents of a return to life under such a doctrine, “fairness” is nowhere to be found in an honest review of their motivations.

Apparently, “fairness” as related to broadcasting over the airwaves means subjecting the listener to the propaganda of the left. Of course, the left cannot depend on market forces or an organic process to ensure its propaganda will be heard by those who tune in to terrestrial radio stations. It is not viewed as “fair” for conservative talk radio to be so prevalent, especially when the usurpations of the left suffer the effects of sunlight. It is not “fair” to allow the listening public to decide to what they wish to listen. It is not “fair” to expect liberal talk or the conveyance of the will of the liberals in power to stand or fall on its own.

And a bit of the Left Turn:

In the wake of the Citizens United recent U.S. Supreme Court case,there has been a resurgence in interest in the fairness doctrine. Now that corporations and unions can spend unlimited funds on political issues, there are concerns that the voices of the average citizen that does not have these powerful resources will be drowned out by powerful interests, well-healed lobbyists, and well-funded elites. The fairness doctrine requires that radio and television stations which operate on the public airwaves (as opposed to cable television and satellite radio), provide certain opportunities for opposing viewpoints. Conservatives historically bristle at the idea, preferring that the marketplace choose what ideas are given a public voice, and there is some merit to those concerns, but I respectfully disagree with them.

I propose that a limited version of the fairness doctrine can be an essential component to an enlightened representative democracy. We live in an era where the truth is often drowned out by well-orchestrated media campaigns. The strength of our nation depends upon a well-informed electorate, and the fairness doctrine, in a small way, serves that public goal. Even though there are more and more outlets for people to get their message out, we should not forget that with the relaxation of anti-trust rulings over the past twenty years, ownership of media outlets has been in large measure consolidated under fewer, but larger corporate umbrellas. The Rupert Murdoch's of the world are not, in my judgment, interested in providing “fair and balanced” news coverage, but rather are interested in using their media holdings to achieve political objectives. Perhaps you agree with their politics, but it does not add to the edification of the electorate, but rather it detracts from it. The fairness doctrine in a small way attempts (regardless of how inadequately) to balance the scales.

11/08/2009

This is not intended to paint the entire generation that followed the "Greatest Generation" with the same red brush. There are certainly patriotic citizens and those who cherish the liberty our founders established among the offspring of the generation who fought World War II. I am related by blood and by marriage to such patriotic children of the "Greatest Generation".

This is about the groovy hippies who never grew out of that phase. This is about the "peace" and "love" types like Bill Ayers who likely mentored Barack Obama more than he would ever admit to the voting public. This is about those who were born in the forties and went from the university to law school to Congress and soaked up all the Marxist ideology they could along the way. This is about those who went from hippy to Congressional intestinal worm and have infested the Capitol for decades. This is about the likes of George Miller (Dimocrat CA-7), who has been in the House since he was twenty-nine years old in 1974. Thank God all of California isn't the same as San Francisco (of course I thank God all of Illinois isn't the same as Chicago too). It is too bad California doesn't have more representatives like the elder and younger Duncan Hunter!

06/05/2009

Jack Geng sent me his cartoon depiction of the next Supreme Court Injustice, Sonia Sotomayor. This nomination serves as a prime example of the two-faced, biased, and idotic media coverage and lib attitudes regarding appointments to the highest court in the land. If a Republican nominates someone who might follow the Constitution, he or she is to be villified and if possible, destroyed. If a Dem, especially the jerk that has the media in a hypnotic state, makes a nomination, it is automatically beyond reproach!

Before we get to Jack's work of art, here's a synopsis of Sotomayor from the Center For Individual Freedom (CFIF).